The Ultimate Kiss
by SonicGurl98
Summary: In the aftermath of the Black Comet incident (Shadow the Hedgehog, 2005) resentment towards Shadow has only increased among the public! Shadow's past has been put to rest, but something still plagues him in his heart! Sonic worries for Shadow, since he disappeared from the public, but one kiss turns all of that upside-down! The Ultimate Kiss! Sonadow, inspired by a DeviantArt comic
1. Ch 1 - Panic!

' _Tap, tap, tap,'_ the sound repeated below his ankles as he tapped his foot impatiently, waiting for the cashier to provide him with the receipt for his purchase of Flamin' Hot Cheetos. It had taken two and a half seconds so far—an _eternity_ for the hedgehog. On the radio, he could hear Nickelback's latest single, "Photograph," crackling through the speakers. He actually liked it, finding its ungraceful vocals to be _'really cool, man,'_ but he knew not to say so to anyone he didn't completely trust with his _life._

Moments after—only a short while for anyone else in that city—he was handed the receipt by the beaming cashier. He had seen that look before. "What do you want?" He asked, tilting his head slightly as his face twisted into a confused expression.

Hardly able to contain himself, the cashier merely replied, "I j-just wanted to th-thank you for destroying the Black Comet! Y-you saved us all!" It was as though the sixteen year-old would burst into tears at any moment, as he said his thank you.

Sonic blinked at the cashier thanking him. " _Great..._ " he thought, sarcastically, not very thrilled to see he was still being mistaken for his darker counterpart. Taking advantage of the awkward situation, however, he asked, "What's your name, there, pal?"

"Chris," the cashier responded simply, calming down a little.

Raising an eyeridge, Sonic responded, "Chris, huh? I like that name." He flashed his trademark smirk and then swiftly grabbed the bag of spicy Cheetos, walking out of the convenience store before turning back and slyly adding, "I'll go tell _Shadow_ you thanked him." A mischievous look in his eyes grew as the cashier's face turned red with embarrassment, but, before the cashier could stutter out his apology, he sped out of the store.

In the streets of Westopolis, Sonic walked. His ears picked up on the faint sound of the breeze blowing by, his quills wiggled with each step he took, and his kiwi-colored gaze was glued to the unopened snack in his _gloved_ hands. It had been all of four whole days since he had last gotten to burn his mouth with the flaming snacks and he could just barely restrain himself from making a messy fool of himself for all to see, but he knew the cheeto dust would ruin his perfectly good pair of gloves if he were to open it and chow down just like he wanted—driven by his pride and the need to preserve some approximation of dignity in himself. Not one moment later, he zipped from the sidewalk of the city to the doorstep of a home belonging to a certain twin-tailed engineer he knew. He knew only one twin-tailed engineer, of course.

' _Knock, knock, knock,'_ the sound repeated against the Prower's door, "Hellooooo, anybody home?" Sonic asked whomever was on the other side of the door, leaning his ear against the frame of the revolving barrier. "C'mon, Tails, are you here or what?" he asked, pressing his weight further onto the door until it was the only thing supporting him – an action he would immediately regret after, as the door swung open and he collapsed through the door and onto the pink hedgehog who had allowed him to enter. "Oof! Sorry, sorry, sorry," Sonic grunted as he landed, pushing himself off the ground only to discover Amy Rose below him. "Oh geesh... I'm _really_ sorry," Sonic gulped, worrying about the compromised position he had found himself in.

To his surprise, however, Amy's only reaction was a wide-eyed expression on her face—blushing as red as her dress. "A-Amy, 'you OK?" Sonic inquired, picking the both of them up off the ground and standing Amy on her feet. She was smiling, staring directly in front of her at nothing in particular.

It was then that Tails joined the both of them in that living room. "Sonic? What're you doing he—" Tails started, before facing the situation that had ensued in his living room. "Uh... what happened to Amy?" the fox asked.

Looking the pink hedgehog up and down as he knelt to pick his bag of Cheetos back up, Sonic answered, "She'll be fine... I hope." Right after saying so, however, the momentarily-shocked pink hedgehog snapped out of her trance and squeezed the blue blur in a suffocating embrace. "Yep, yep, she's fine," Sonic managed to squeak out as his insides were crushed by the powerful girl.

She nuzzled her face into the sapphire speedster's chest, sighing happily. Then, as if the world lifted her heart to the highest of heights, she asked with the utmost of confidence, "Hello, my darling Sonic! Aren't you happy to see your girlfriend?" The way she said it, one could almost believe she was indeed the girlfriend of Sonic the Hedgehog... if they didn't know already that the two hedgehogs weren't, in fact, dating.

After pushing her off of him with what strength he had left, Sonic answered, "I-it's nice to see you, Amy." He then tossed the bagged snack over to his twin-tailed friend, requesting, "Hey, y'think you can take this off my hands, for now? I was gonna eat it, but..." his gaze leaked back over to the pink hedgehog, suggesting that she was the reason for the delay in his snacking.

Interestingly enough, Amy's reaction was that of amusement. "What, you can't have a snack while your _girlfriend_ is around?" she smiled, as if it were some joke she was barely able to contain her laughter from.

" _No,_ " Sonic answered, a sort of smile of his own gracing his face, "I can't _take off my gloves_ and have a snack while _you're_ around." His correction served to reiterate the fact that the two were not actually dating, which merely elicited an eye-roll from the pink hedgehog. The sapphire snack-wanter could only humor Amy's over-familiarity so much, but he drew the line at allowing her to see him so... exposed. It was different around Tails - the two were practically brothers, which made the swift hedgehog feel much more safe to assume he would not be _ogled._

Sure enough, Tails—having caught the bag moments before—replied, "I can hold on to this. C'mon and take a seat, I'll be done with the Tornado in a sec," then walking back to his latest project in his workshop in the next room. With that invitation, Sonic promptly sat on the couch facing the TV, followed by Amy sitting right next to him shortly thereafter. With a chuckle, Sonic nudged her, signaling that he wanted more space. He was hugged tightly, in response.

On the Television, the fox had a news program on, reporting on the Black Comet incident nearly a week after it had initially happened. Sonic could tell they were scraping the bottom of the barrel at that point, as they were only finding other Westopolitans to give their first-hand account of where they were when it happened and how they felt. Much was said about his old friend, Shadow, who had become sort of impossible to track down since that last Tuesday. Many thought of him as a hero, a vocal minority hated him, while Sonic simply wondered where the dark hero could be then.

Unfortunately, they were televising an interview with a man who had a grudge against the hedgehog that saved his life. "I heard he's one of _them,_ " He snarled through his mustache, "I don't know why 'muh tax dollars are goin' to G.U.N. for, lettin' him go free after what his friends did to us."

Then, the channel changed. Looking over to his right, Sonic spotted Amy with the TV remote in her hand. It was just as well, as watching corporations trying to squeeze every dime out of the incident was getting to be a bit tiresome. Still, the thought entered into Sonic's mind, it was nice getting to see Shadow again. "Hey, Amy," Sonic started, attracting the attention of his biggest fangirl, "it's nice to see Shadow around again, right?"

Without missing a single beat, Amy replied cheerily, "Of course! Shadow's our friend and it's so good to see him." To his surprise, however, she went on, "I was a little worried about him, when we first started seeing him... but he's still the same Shadow I said goodbye to on the Space Colony ARK, so that was a relief..."

Nodding along to what he was hearing, Sonic found himself differing from Amy's view slightly towards the end of what she said. Sure, he was happy to see him, and he was worried, only... he was _still_ worrying, to an extent. It hadn't dawned on him until then, and he wasn't quite sure he wanted to bring it up to the girl clinging to him at that moment, so he left it to linger in his mind.

"... Okay, Amy, seriously, is there any way I can get you to let go of me?" Sonic asked, growing desperate to escape the rosy hedgehog's tight embrace.

Playfully, the girly hedgehog answered, "Only if you say the magic word~"

His skin crawled. "But Amy..." he whined, "I'm supposed to be an edgy dude who does what he wants and lives by his own feeling!" He wasn't serious, he only needed to amuse himself for as long as he could stand being stuck in the situation. Finally, he relented. "... _Please,_ may I be allowed to leave?" asked the hedgehog, before being let go by the powerful girl without further ado. "Thanks, Amy," he chuckled, a little happy that their 'games' only went as long as he was comfortable with them. Standing up from the couch, Sonic decided to leave the living room to go see what his local twin-tailed nerd was up to.

In the workshop, the hedgehog spotted the familiar sight of a red biplane as he arrived. "Whoa, pretty retro, don't you think?" Sonic offered, alerting his blue-eyed 'brother' of his presence in the workshop. The fox appeared to have been getting ready to take a break, but he seemed to have scrapped those plans as he reached for yet another item from his toolbox. "Hey, hey, don't let me stop you from chilling out, there, buddy," the hedgehog smirked.

Shaking his head warily, the twin-tailed engineer replied, "No way – I can't leave you alone with this, _you're_ the reason I had to fix it up to begin with!" Tails had spent the last few months trying to fix it after Sonic had taken it for what he called a 'spin'— _'more like a typhoon,'_ Tails commented, at the time—so he was a little protective of the aircraft. He couldn't be _too_ angry at Sonic, just... cautious.

Even so, with that banter aside, Sonic found his mind returning to the image of Shadow, in his super form, several miles in the sky. "Hey, buddy," Sonic started, gracefully sidestepping taking responsibility for his actions against Tails's _poor biplane,_ "I know this is a long shot, but, have you seen Shadow lately?"

The question seemed to take the twin-tailed fox by surprise, only to grow more and more puzzled as he couldn't name one occasion he had so much as spotted the dark hedgehog. Not on TV, not in public, not in pictures, only in clips from that last Tuesday. "Huh... no, I haven't," Tails replied, before asking, "Why do you ask? Did you need something from him?"

Coming as no surprise to Sonic, he nodded and answered, "He's been on my mind again, I guess... Blame it on the TV, they've been going on about last Tuesday nonstop," he added, scratching the back of his quills awkwardly. Eyeing the bag of cheetos that the twin-tailed fox had left on a counter, it seemed like those would be the perfect thing to distract him from the situation with Shadow, causing him to pose another question to his life-long friend, "Y'know any place I can go to have a snack in peace?" Tails looked back at the hedgehog and smiled, knowingly.

* * *

Years had passed, but not one blade of grass seemed different from how he remembered it. It was all there. "Of course, why didn't I think of this before?" Sonic wondered, as he took in the sight of the Chao Garden. The chao that resided in it had been taken to kindergarten by Amy a half-hour before then, so there was nothing standing in the way of the hedgehog and his spicy treat.

Sonic took a deep breath in, enjoying the perpetually gorgeous day the Chao Garden was having. It felt like with each breath he took, more memories came rushing back into his mind. Memories of watching chao races, giving animals to that two-toned shiny blue chao he once knew, and seeing that all-too-memorable baby-blue and pale-yellow cocoon form around the little critters as they metamorphosed into the next stage of their lives.

Thinking back, he couldn't quite place why he stopped coming to the Chao Island. Why not take some time out of his day to take care of those little ones, slow down and enjoy a more relaxing thing in life? After all, he couldn't spend his _whole_ life rolling around and stomping badniks—there _had_ to be some time for him to just be... him. Giving it more thought, he realized his absence from the gardens was less a choice and more a lack of action on his part. Looking at it now, with fresh eyes, he knew he couldn't stay away as long as he had before, so he made a note to return there more often.

Quickly, he found a tree to support his back as he sat down with his legs spread relaxedly on the luscious grass. Without a care, he slipped his gloves off, exposing his bare hands to the cool breeze of the garden where every day was a beautiful day.

He felt vulnerable, exposed, but safe all at once. It was an indulgent moment for him, and he was set to enjoy every bit of it. He picked up the bag and inspected it, gazing upon the try-hard _'way cool'_ mascot printed onto it. "Imagine being _that_ desperate to look cool," Sonic laughed to himself, without the slightest shred of irony intruding any of his words.

The hedgehog was many things, but 'self-aware' was, in that moment, not one of them.

Breaking open the bag, at long last, he dipped his index finger and thumb inside, lifting it up shortly thereafter with a spicy red cheeto between the two fingers. He began to open his mouth up for it, the feeling of burning hotness mere moments away from gracing his unsuspecting taste buds, only to spot **Shadow** of all people from the corner of his eye.

His eyes widened, his heart skipped a beat before racing, his mind was impossibly empty and yet overflowing with different conflicting thoughts. "oh god, _**no,**_ " Sonic muttered under his breath, dropping the cheeto back into the bag, before promptly dropping the bag itself in shock—a few cheetos dropping out of it and staining the once-immaculate earth of the garden.

"What do I do, what do I do," he panicked out loud, looking for his gloves before realizing he had already gotten the cheeto dust on his fingers—and he couldn't lick it off _in front of Shadow._

It was like a nightmare. Caught _gloveless_ by his greatest rival. "Oh god what do I do, what the _heck_ do I do," Sonic worried even more out loud, getting up clumsily and beginning to run frantically around the Chao Garden.

He was practically running laps, at that point. His arms flailed, his heart was beating like it was performing an absolutely ridiculous drum solo, and he repeated the same question over and over, "what do I do, what do I do?" when the only thing his mind could shout back at him was, " **Panic!** "

Then, he was stopped.

Suddenly, without warning, Shadow pulled him in close by the back of his head and **kissed** him full on the lips.

"M-mmff!... Mmmmmm..." Sonic reacted, eyes opened so wide it felt almost like they were going to pop out of his head, before slowly falling calmly half-lidded. He gasped for air for the brief moment Shadow relented, only for the kiss to resume almost instantly. It felt like it lasted for an eternity, Shadow's lips pressed _firmly_ against his... and it was... _amazing._ The blue hedgehog's face turned so red, one could almost forget it was ever blue in the first place; his tail began to wag as Shadow held him there, by the top of his head with one hand while the other gripped his arm. Sonic didn't know what to think, so he didn't – allowing the dark hedgehog to continue the kiss without a single thought entering into his euphoric state of mind.

He was being kissed, by Shadow. Shadow, the hedgehog that he had battled countless times before... Shadow, the ultimate lifeform that made the ultimate sacrifice in honor of his fallen best friend... Shadow, the hedgehog he had grown to hate, then, eventually, learned to respect all those years ago, was kissing him. Shadow was kissing _him._

It was a kiss he would never have seen coming, a kiss unlike any Sonic had ever experienced before in his life. It could be described in no other way than: ultimate. It was the ultimate kiss.

Just as quickly as it had happened, Shadow pulled away and began to walk off. "Good, now that shut him up..." He said, dismissively, as he left the garden, leaving Sonic with nothing to do but to watch the dark hedgehog as he left.

Shadow had no idea what he had done. Sonic was so dazed he could hardly grasp what happened. Moments passed, and the hedgehog's emerald eyes were still glued to the exit where Shadow had gone. His face reddened more and more as his mind lingered on the moment further. Nothing else could make its way into the hedgehog's spiny head, only the kiss that shook him to his core.

What Shadow didn't know, right then, was that Sonic didn't just like him anymore. Something new and unfamiliar to the blue blur began to take hold of his heart – something he couldn't put into words, even _if_ he were still able to _form_ any words at that moment. Even _he_ didn't realize it when it happened, but there was no stopping it now that it had arrived and taken his heart. "Taken..." the word lingered in the hedgehog's mind. His heart had not been taken, he felt, it had been _stolen._

For on that day, November 21st, 2005, Sonic no longer liked Shadow... he **loved** him.

 **To Be Continued...**


	2. Ch 2 - I Envy You

When Sonic awoke from the daze he was in, several moments after the kiss, the hedgehog discovered that—curiously enough—the entire rest of the world had not faded away in the wake of it. He was still on the ground, breathing, being. Looking down, he found the bag of cheetos he had dropped, though some of its contents had fallen out onto the grass. Carefully, Sonic knelt down to clean up what he could, reaching for the bag, only to pause suddenly. "Shadow..." he thought, a warmth building up in his heart. What was this? Sonic wondered. "Shadow..." he repeated, out loud, listening to the sound of the name curiously, before feeling the warmth grow in his chest.

For reasons he didn't yet know, a smile crept its way onto his face.

Not a thing had changed in the garden—or indeed the world at large—except for Sonic. Something new had awoken within him, something he still was only beginning to realize was there at all. Absently, he finally picked the bag up off of the ground and began to snack on it without giving it any thought. Through the hedgehog's emerald eyes, the world around him seemed at once more beautiful than it had ever been in all the years he had been to that garden, yet so uninteresting to him, now. He couldn't bring himself to care all that deeply about anything besides the hedgehog on his mind.

Instead, he could only look at the shimmering pond for but a moment before he thought, " _His_ eyes are more beautiful." In just one deep breath of the life-giving fresh air, he knew in his heart that nothing could make him feel more alive than the one who kissed him. Seemingly just as soon as he had started, Sonic discovered he had practically _inhaled_ the contents of the bag of spicy cheesy snacks in his ungloved hands. It had been fine, everything was fine, but—perhaps for the first time in his life—the sapphire hedgehog felt as though he had gotten his first taste of something truly amazing. At that garden, from the lips of the onyx hedgehog that once was his greatest foe, in just one kiss.

Once more, the blue hedgehog turned _red_ at just the memory of it.

He swiftly disposed of the empty bag, which had once contained the snack that had enticed him so much before, then washed his hands of the cheeto dust before drying them and putting on his gloves once more. His eyes had watered, his nose ran, and his mouth burned from the spicy treat, but none of the sensations could hold a candle to that kiss and the warmth it had brought to Sonic's heart.

As though he were in a trance, he slowly left the garden and exited the island through the transporter in the lobby, causing his surroundings to suddenly change from cosmic stars with heavenly and hellish clouds to the bustling streets of Westopolis once more. It was in the middle of a breathtakingly gorgeous afternoon – the sun shined down on it brightly, but not irritatingly bright; a gentle breeze caused the trees to shake lightly, but only enough to add a soft sound to the ambience of the area. Anyone else would be stunned by the enchanting beauty of it all, if they would just stop to notice, but even as Sonic witnessed it all himself—more aware of it all than ever before—he could only think of how much more he would prefer to simply gaze into the deep red eyes of Shadow.

"What _is_ this?" he wondered. He knew it was to do with the kiss, but no kiss had ever struck him like this before. All the times Amy had pressed her lips onto virtually every inch of his face, every time he had received a congratulatory kiss from a grateful citizen of Central City that had been rescued by him, none was ever like this. For all he knew, kisses were only meant to make him chuckle and smile if they didn't discomfort him, but this kiss didn't stop at his lips like the others – it went into his heart. There was only one thing he could do, in this time of confusion, he knew. Without wasting another moment, he left Central City to go to the one person he trusted to give him a solid answer.

* * *

"Wait, you're coming to _me_ , about this?" asked the echidna, sitting at the steps of the Shrine of the Master Emerald, wearing a very confused expression on his face. "Are you sure you weren't thinking of someone else?"

Nodding to what Knuckles said, Sonic responded, "See, I could've _sworn_ I was, but they totally slipped my mind, so I'm here now." He finished his sentence with a smirk he knew irritated the living hell out of the echidna, but that was no different from anything else he did around the echidna on the wrong day—that is, nearly _any_ day. "I'm kidding, though - I've just got no clue what to do and you seem to know what you're doing most of the time.. y'know, when you're not buying into the 'ole doctor's latest trick _,_ " he chuckled, unable to resist the urge to tease the echidna once more.

Unamused, Knuckles rolled his eyes, sighed, and replied, "Well, _I've_ never been kissed before so I wouldn't know what to do besides going to people who actually know anything about this... but," he continued, just as Sonic had hoped he would, "even _I_ know it's weird to just kiss someone randomly like that. Whoever did that to you, you should ask them why they thought they could just do that to you, it's ridiculous!... Assuming we aren't talking about Amy, in which case I have _no_ idea what that girl's deal is."

It elicited a reserved bite of the lip from Sonic, unsure of the things the echidna had told him while lacking most of the context. Promptly, the blue blur replied, "Nah, not Amy—not this time, anyway," clearing up the less-important matter as his mind raced to make sense of the rest. "... But, what if... the person who kissed me, what if they're just really out of it? What if they haven't exactly gotten a ton of social interaction and just don't know any better?"

This time, Knuckles _was_ a little amused, chuckling slightly, "How much less social interaction can someone get than _me?_ Have they been _frozen_ for the past few decades?" Nervously, Sonic chuckled along. "Yeah, see? Who do they think they are?" Even as Knuckles spoke, Sonic's mind still wandered back to Shadow. He wanted to embrace the hedgehog, to see that intense gaze meet his, to feel his lips on him again and get just a taste of it—if only just one more time, or two more times, or as many times as fate and the whims of the ultimate lifeform would allow him to have. "Well?" Knuckles repeated.

He shook his head, returning to the conversation at hand for another fleeting moment. "Hehe, I guess I dunno, Knux. I've just never felt this way before... I don't even feel _bad,_ it's... Everything is so different now... it's like I'm a new hedgehog." He wondered if it truly was just him, or if the world itself changed for everyone else. Could it truly just be _his_ world that would never be the same again? He wondered.

A new look appeared in the echidna's amethyst eyes, this one much less confused. "Hmm..." he said, smiling a small smile that one could mistake for a neutral expression if they didn't look close enough, "yeah, I wouldn't know about that, I guess. You should go to Amy, I think – she knows all about that love stuff..." The echidna's insinuations from the vague words flustered Sonic, whose flushed face caused Knuckles to inquire, "Oh, sorry, is it not like that? I really don't know much about these things, it just sounded like what I've heard before..."

What to say in response felt impossible to discover, in the swirling chaos of the spiky head of the hedgehog. " _This_ is love?" wondered Sonic, inwardly, as confusion swelled in his heart – a question he could not answer. "... I dunno," was all Sonic could say in response. Two words of surrender, all because of one powerful word.

"Okay, Sonic," Knuckles nodded, deciding not to press him any further on the details of it all, "no matter what, just don't let that person hurt you, alright? I might not know much, but I know these situations can get... difficult, if you aren't careful." Sonic did his best to listen, but it was hard to when the echidna's scarlet fur was so close to being remotely similar to the color of the tips of Shadow's quills. However, before he could get lost in thought about the dark hedgehog yet again, Knuckles said, "Now get out of here, Sonic, I can't help you anymore."

Snapping out of the trance before he could fall into it, Sonic nodded again. It pained the stubborn hedgehog to concede to the echidna, but when he was right he was right. "Okay, Knux, I'll get out of your dreads," Sonic nodded, smirking, "it was nice seein' you again, anyway! How long has it been since we last saw each other?"

Curiously, the echidna raised one eyebrow. "Uh... maybe a few days?"

"Phew, 'sounds like _an eternity_..." Sonic chuckled. He gave the echidna one playful wink, then sped off so quickly you'd be hard-pressed to prove he had only been there with the echidna mere moments before.

* * *

' _Tap... tap... tap..._ ' Shadow tapped the surface of the table he was seated at. The hums of all the machinery surrounding them filled the room, as he awaited the Commander's arrival for their first G.U.N. briefing as Team Dark. Rouge sat beside him, while E-123 Omega stood beside her. The bat seemed calm, even if she looked out of place sitting in such a stuffy room and not flying in the night sky with countless jewels hanging from her arms. Omega, however, was never calm – only quiet, as though at any given time it could snap and open fire at everything that so much as looked at it wrong.

Quite why the Commander was taking so long was anyone's guess, but the bat girl was getting impatient. "Stop tapping, hon, it's getting on my nerves," she said to the dark hedgehog, a sharpness in the beginning of the sentence betraying her calm demeanor. It wasn't a problem for Shadow, so he complied shortly after, eliciting a sigh of relief from the bat. "Where the hell have you been, lately, anyway?" asked Rouge.

No answer, just that same lost-in-thought look he'd had since he teleported into the secret headquarters of G.U.N. minutes before. "Fine," she responded, not looking to spend much more energy to convince her ultimate partner to take a break from his _brooding_ session, "have it your way. I didn't even _want_ to hear what you've been up to." She kind of did, in truth, but she also knew that, if there was one thing Shadow couldn't do, it was speak when he had nothing he wished to say.

At last, the Commander arrived in the stuffy room. "Greetings," he said, announcing his presence to the three as he entered the room and made his way to his chair. Omega had detected his heat signature minutes ago, Rouge had already caught the sound of his footsteps before he even reached the door, and Shadow... wouldn't have known, as he continued to dwell further into his own thoughts. "When this meeting was scheduled, we were moving forward with plans to assign your first mission working as a team... unfortunately, due to an increasingly-vocal group of people voicing their resentment towards one of you, we have decided to postpone any assignments that may have required all three of you."

Everyone in the room could deduce who was being spoken of – even E-123 Omega, who wasn't originally programmed to have the capacity to parse such matters. Shadow, for his part, casually decided to venture back out of his mind. "Is that all?" was all that he asked.

"Negative," the Commander answered, "the rest of you hold no risk of bringing negative attention to our organization or anything else that could potentially interfere with our operations, and so you will receive assigned missions that don't require Shadow's abilities later today." Omega absorbed the info in a way that someone unfamiliar to the robot could read as neutral, while Rouge simply pursed her lips before nodding. "Rouge, Omega, you are dismissed. Shadow, I require your presence just a little longer." With that, Omega moved out of the room at a pace one could hardly tell was _not_ one hundred percent efficient without Omega's processing powers, while Rouge herself swiftly made her way to the door. Meaningfully, the bat looked back at the dark hedgehog one last time—concern flashing briefly in her eyes—before departing from the briefing.

The room grew lonelier, lacking the energy of the bat and the bot. Sympathy filled the gaze of the Commander as he focused his attention solely on Shadow. "I know I was wrong about you, but... I'm afraid there's not much we can do to help everyone else understand that too," he told the hedgehog, "so, it is with a heavy heart that I must instruct you to continue to keep a low profile until further notice. It could take anywhere from a month to a year for all of this to blow over, but I assure you we'll contact you as soon as we're—"

"Very well..." Shadow interjected, not desiring any further consolation for the situation from the commander. "Will that be all?"

To his surprise, the commander's face lightened slightly. "Negative," the grandfather informed Shadow, "I also wanted to thank you for the visit. You really made my granddaughter happy, and that means more to me and my family than I can ever adequately put into words. Thank you, Shadow, you're always welcome in our home," he said, with a rare smile on his face.

Softly, Shadow smiled back at the commander. "Thank you, sir," he said, before leaving his seat and walking out of the room.

Immediately to his right, Rouge stood by the door, having listened in on the remainder of the conversation she had been dismissed from. "Good with kids, hm? I wouldn't have guessed, but I can see it," Rouge commented with a smile, eliciting merely a cold glance from the ultimate lifeform, before she joined Shadow and walked beside him. "It's not fair those humans have decided you of all people should be their next scapegoat, especially after _you_ saved them all," she sighed, "I hope I don't have to miss you in the field for _too_ long, Shadow."

As Rouge looked into the dark hedgehog's eyes for answers, she noted that they looked tired, with dark circles appearing below them. "Shadow," she said once more, gaining his attention for the moment as he looked back at her, "if you need anything, you know you can come to me, right?"

His ear twitched. "Hm," he responded vaguely, before walking past her and disappearing into the sea of other agents of G.U.N. shuffling about in the building. He could faintly sense her worry, as well as her indignation at being walked away from like that, but he left her behind him even so.

When he was sure he was alone, he grabbed hold of his blue chaos emerald and held it tightly, closing his eyes and focusing on the image of his destination as best as he could. Briefly, the image of the stunned emerald gaze of his former rival flashed in his mind, but he pushed it aside once more. At last, he opened his eyes and found himself in that chao garden once again.

It was empty, not a chao or familiar face in sight, which he had counted on. Quietly, he sat at the edge of one of the cliffs in the garden, looking up at the bright blue sky. He could hear footsteps coming from the entrance to the garden, boots with heels that clicked in a very specific way on the hard floor of the lobby. He knew who it would be even before he saw her vibrant red dress and pink hair. She carried in her arms a chao – darker, black and red. "What is that?" Shadow said, revealing himself as he kicked off of the cliff and onto the grass.

Calmly, Amy Rose deduced what Shadow referred to and said, "Oh, this is the chao that Rouge has been taking care of the most! We both ended up taking our chao to kindergarten at the same time, it was _such_ a funny coincide—um, Shadow?" Shadow was still studying the dark chao when he picked it up out of Amy's arms and looked at it. "I think it likes you," Amy commented, with a smile so bright it could have made Shadow squint if it were any brighter.

Sure enough, the chao formed a toothy grin with its sharp teeth while Shadow held it. It appeared very happy, yet not overwhelmingly so, with the situation. "Hm," Shadow hummed, before he gently put it down on the grass. "It is a good chao," the dark hedgehog remarked, as favorable a 'review' as any chao could hope for from the ultimate lifeform. They both watched it take a few steps on its own, only for it to fall on its face shortly after. Frowning, Shadow moved quickly to its side and picked it back up, placing it on its feet once more. "Rouge won't be able to take care of it for some time..." Shadow stated, a feeling of worry hinted in his words and tone of voice.

Warmth in her voice, as usual, Amy replied, "Then it's a good thing it has you, isn't it?" Shadow's ear twitched. "I've gotta go find Sonic, my intuition tells me he needs me now," she giggled, "I'll leave you two alone now!" She then skipped out of the garden and back into the lobby, leaving the dark hedgehog with the dark chao.

Now that he was mostly alone again, he could return to his thoughts. Even if it was a presence, the chao was simple enough to take care of without being too distracting, he thought. He picked a nut from one of the trees growing in the garden and proceeded to feed it to the chao that Rouge had apparently been raising in between all the saving of the world she occasionally partook in with the others. "I envy you," Shadow spoke to the chao, in spite of how little the winged creature could understand what he told it. "Your past is so new... and you've never missed someone you'll never get to meet again," he quietly said, petting the little one while it ate.

Perhaps it was easier to talk when the other couldn't understand.

 **To Be Continued...**


End file.
